Air-cooled to the Far North: Porsche Club drives to the North Cape in the winter!

For decades the air-cooled Porsche 911 has been an icon amongst sports cars. The German Porsche owner club “Porsche Club für den klassischen 911 Südwest e.V.“ is completely dedicated to the classic air-cooled Porsche 911. The club, based in southwest Germany is extremely active and doesn’t only just visit vintage racing events or attend driving safety training in summer and winter, they drive their air-cooled Porsche in everyday life!

The core members of the club around Carsten Prochaska had a great idea last year: We´ll be off than with our 964 and 993. While many Porsche fans go on tour with their air-cooled 911 mostly in summer, Carsten Prochaska, Karsten, and Berthold Rupp, Gerhard Habermehl, Andreas Eisen, Carsten Horn, and Ramón Binder have planned to drive from Stuttgart to the North Cape of Europe – in the middle of the Winter!

But before they started their 7.200 km tour at the end of December, the “North Cape touring squad“ stopped by at the KW HQ in Fichtenberg / Germany.

The Porsches’ were already equipped with our KW Classic coilover kits, and we raised the drop a little bit, so they get a better right height during their „snow tour“. But as you already know our KW Classics suspension kits for Porsche 964 and 993 are already made of stainless steel and even the harshest winter condition of the Far North can’t harm our made in Germany handcrafted suspension kits.

Our colleague Markus also took care of the wheels alignment and the Porsche enthusiasts could start with further preparation, before the great “North Cape” adventure which began on December 27th, 2018.

On December 27th they met each other at the Porsche Museum in Stuttgart and headed through Germany to the shore of the Baltic Sea. After a lot of traffic, the air-cooled Porsche arrived at the Porsche Center in the city of Lübeck.

There, the Porsche Center opened its gates for the Porsche enthusiasts late in the evening so the four Classics could change the regular winter tires to Pirelli winter tires with spikes. Luggage as well as some needed spare parts and tools did not fit in the four 911s, Porsche Germany provided a Cayenne as support vehicle, which was a very nice gesture.

In the evening, the ferry set course for North-North-East to Helsinki / Finland. Enough time, to recharge and to mentally prepare for the great adventure.

The further the ferry drove towards the north, passing the coast of South-Sweden and afterward heading towards East, it grew colder.

A cozy -10°C, after one day of acclimation in Helsinki, the great adventure finally started. From the capital of Finland, passing countless lakes, via the city Jyvaskylä in Central Finland they kept driving further north. The first stop on the trip to the North Cape was one of the oldest communities in Finland. After almost 590 km, the Porsche Enthusiasts reached the small city Liminki, located around 30 km south of the city Oulu with their famous university that is also considered one of Europe’s “living labs”. There are no larger cities in the world, apart from Murmansk Russia, that are more northerly than Oulu.

With every kilometer, the streets got lonelier, the snow got denser and nature came more and more into the forefront. Rounded up with the pleasant sound of the air-cooled flat-six engines – could it get any better?

After some quick images at the famous polar circle – roadhouse Jouksenki and the trip continued through the Finnish-Swedish borderland, to finally arrive in the Hotel in Hetta after 500 km over ice and snow.

How many liters of window cleaner the four air-cooled Porsche needed is unknown? But it was a lot.

In the Finnish-Swedish borderland and Lapland, they drove the „North Cape Island“ Magerøya, which is comfortably connected to the mainland with a tunnel. From Hetta on it took almost another day to reach the 420 km with their air-cooled Porsche Classics.

After New Year’s Eve in the Norwegian Honningsvåg, the gate to the North Cape, it finally got on the island Magerøya to the North Cape at the coordinates 71° 10′ 21”, where the famous Globe is located.

They did it; but for the Porsche adventurers that was just the first step of their great adventure to North Cape, finally, they had to get back South. For the trip back home, the first route was directly on the Norwegian coast.

From the North Cape, the streets wiggled along the fjords and in the Norwegian village Skibotn, the classic Porsche headed towards back to the heartland. Talking about Classics. The Porsche with the lowest mileage was the Porsche 964 from Andreas Eisen, who´s Carrera 4 just had 115.000 km on the mileage counter. Andreas´ 911 managed the tour just as good as Carsten Prochaska´s daily driver.

His 964 already had 382.000 km before the North Cape trip started, and the air-cooled flat-six engine loved the arctic cold.

In the three-border region Finland, Norway and Sweden is Kilpisjärvi the first destination on the trip back home, around 570 km south-west of the North Cape. They stayed one night in the Finnish village with not even 200 people living there, and the next morning, they took the again strongly snowed streets further South, to relax for two days in an “Iglootel”.

The „long-distance drivers“ used their free time, to drive snowmobiles and to go on a „Lapland-Safari“; finally, the North Cape tour was not just about any records, it was about the pleasure in driving.

And of course, the group took many pictures of the Aurora, which were a faithful companion during the entire tour across the polar circle. Afterward, in a very long run through Sweden, it got into direction Göteborg.

In between, the Porsche drivers also had to give breakdown service and sometimes they had a hard time getting forward even with spikes. The drivers were very demanded, but as routineers’ in the Classic Porsche, it actually wasn´t as wild as they have expected.

Sometimes the play instinct was strong and during quick drives on an ice lake, one or the other just stopped a little next to the track; but that made the trip with the four air-cooled Porsche that much more exciting.

More than six times, Karsten Rupps Porsche 964 has circled the Earth and the Carrera 4 with its 245.000 km mileage seemed to like the trip as much as its driver.

Gerhard Habermehl’s 993 Carrera 2, by the way, was the most modern air-cooled of the tour and finally could „make many km“ at one time. With its just 122.000 km, it was just getting broken in.

In the South-Swedish city Göteborg, the weather was just like in Northern Germany. No snow in sight. From Göteborg, the ferry directly drove to Travemünde, Germany.

Early in the morning the tires with spikes were demounted in the Porsche Center, the last part started, with memories in the luggage back to the Swabian Homeland. The result of the „North Cape-driver“, an air-cooled Porsche 911 is still good for any kind of fun and such a tour in the winter makes it addicting for more kilometers in the Classic Porsche. And our KW classic suspensions have survived the tour with brilliance, just like the old Porsche itself.

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Means that such product is compliant with the requirements of the German Type Approval, paragraph 20 of the StVZO.

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Means that such product meets the USAD Forest service Standard for spark arresters FS5100-1.

KEY

Akrapovič's product line includes products regulated by national and international emission regulations. Akrapovič makes every effort to label regulated products and identify if they are for competition-use only or for general street/highway use in the regulated area. However, Akrapovič does not make any statement of compliance for products that do not have an explicit compliance label. Buyer is ultimately responsible for deciding if a part is legal for buyer's intended use.

CARB RP

Means that such product is "CARB compliant", i.e. compliant with the requirements of the Air Resources Board of the California Environmental Protection Agency. Products marked as CARB compliant are considered replacement parts under CARB regulations.

EPA

Means that such product meets the EPA noise standard as set forth by the United States Code of Federal Regulations, Title 40, Chapter I, Part 205, Subpart E (80 dBA).

ECE

For motorcycle exhaust systems: Means that such product is compliant with the requirements of the United Nations Regulation ECE-R92 on Uniform provisions concerning the approval of non-original replacement exhaust silencing systems (RESS) for motorcycles, mopeds and three-wheeled vehicles.

For car exhaust systems: Means that such product is compliant with the requirements of the United Nations Regulation ECE-R59 on Uniform provisions concerning the approval of replacement silencing systems.

EC

Means that such product is compliant with the applicable requirements of the European Union Directive EC 97/24 or the European Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) No. 134/2014 supplementing Regulation No. 168/2013 (EU) of the European Parliament and of the Council as indicated in the attached EC type approval document in the package and available on the product website.

ABE

Means that such product is compliant with the requirements of the German Type Approval, paragraph 20 of the StVZO.

SA

Means that such product meets the USAD Forest service Standard for spark arresters FS5100-1.